Preventive Maintenance for Laboratory Instruments: Why It Matters

Every day, you rely on your laboratory instrumentation to work consistently and effectively so you can achieve accurate and reliable results. Looking after your instrumentation is essential to ensure that failure, downtime, and data loss does not occur unexpectedly, which could throw your lab off schedule and surprise you with a huge bill in repairs. The best way to keep your instruments looked after is by implementing a regular preventive maintenance program.

Benefits of preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance involves regularly inspecting, cleaning, and calibrating laboratory instruments to ensure they are working correctly and efficiently. By implementing preventive maintenance, you can enhance your lab’s overall operation in several ways:

• Identify potential issues before they become expensive and disruptive problems, saving time, money, and maintaining productivity.
• Optimize your instrument performance, ensuring accurate and reliable data.
• Extend the lifespan of your instruments to reduce costly replacements and upgrades.
• Comply with regulatory requirements or meet quality accreditation standards. 

Outsourcing preventive maintenance

It takes both training and experience to consistently identify and avert potential issues that can halt your systems and disrupt your lab’s productivity. While some labs decide to perform preventive maintenance in house, outsourcing to a professional service provider can offer several advantages. By appointing Agilent CrossLab Preventive Maintenance services, you can count on us to provide you with the following benefits:

• Capability: Our knowledgeable engineers have both the expertise and experience to perform preventive maintenance tasks quicky and efficiently, ensuring minimal instrument downtime.
• Flexibility: Our service providers can work around your lab’s schedule to minimize disruption.
• Cost savings: Outsourcing preventive maintenance can be more cost effective than hiring and training in-house staff, especially for high-throughput or lean laboratories. All Agilent CrossLab Preventive Maintenance services include travel, labor, and supplies—so there are no unexpected extra costs.
• Peace of mind: Using our experts for preventive maintenance, you can be assured that your instruments are in good hands—so you can focus on your core research activities.

In fact, by outsourcing your preventive maintenance to Agilent, you could benefit from a 24% reduction in repairs, a 31% reduction in repair costs, and 2.4 days less downtime per year.*

So, don’t overlook the importance of preventive maintenance. It is recommended that you perform regular maintenance on your instruments and, at least once per year, schedule professional preventive maintenance. Investing in regular instrument upkeep now can improve instrument lifespan and prevent greater costs in the future. Agilent CrossLab Preventive Maintenance services can give you confidence that your instrument is performing reliably while minimizing unplanned downtime—so you can have the peace of mind to focus on your important research tasks.

*Based on a five-year preventive maintenance study of more than 38,000 records on Agilent and non-Agilent instruments, conducted by a third-party actuarial firm.